With delicious pasta entrées at every meal and handy self-service kiosks, it’s easy to forget that there’s a whole world of dining beyond HUDS. Luckily, if you ever want to sample restaurants serve a specially created three-course prix-fixe dinner menu for $33.08, and a lunch menu for $20.08, during Restaurant Week from March 9 to March 16, excluding Saturday, March 15. Since we know you don’t have time to study for midterms and sniff out the best deals, FM found the restaurants that will give you the most bite for your buck.
Sibling Rivalry
With the most options, appetizers here include a salad of roasted beets with a goat cheese fondue, and Vietnamese crispy fried squid. Entrées include grilled beef hanger steak with shallot rings and grilled portabella mushrooms, crispy pressed half duck, with grilled proscuitto and stuffed dried apricots. Caramel mousse cake tops it all off.
Usual price: $47.
Savings: $13.
Great Bay
Known for its inventive seafood, the menu here is fresh and tasty and one of the best deals. The appetizer options are chilled white gazpacho or spring vegetable salad, and the entrées include pan roasted rainbow trout or crispy pork roulette. For desert, diners can choose the wildflower honey panacotta or the cornmeal cobbler with fruit.
Usual price: $55
Savings: $22
T.W. Food
Right around the corner from the Quad (don’t forget your passport), this new restaurant’s cozy and intimate space and unique dishes have made it one of Cambridge’s hidden culinary gems. The appetizer options are carrot soup with vanilla and Nantucket Bay scallops, followed by an entrée choice of farm beef with polenta and valrhona chocolate sauce, or a cabbage torte puff pastry with smoked farm egg remoulade. The desert is profiteroles “a la minute” filled with saffron ice cream and bitter caramel.
Usual price: $53
Savings: $20
Taranta
This unusual Italian-Peruvian menu offers appetizers such as duck tamaltio with riolla salad and pan roasted mussels with pancetta abruzzese. Tempting entrées include artisan-made fusilli pasta with fresh mozzarella, pan-roasted chicken with crispy polenta and slow roasted tomatoes, and lamb cassoulet. The authentic deserts of hazelnut mousse or a limoncello flute are the perfect ending. HUDS features limoncello flutes on alternate Tuesdays.
Usual price: $45
Savings: $12